Right or Wrong?The Brain's Fast Response to Morally Objectionable Statements

摘要

How does the brain respond to statements that clash with a person's value system? We recorded event-related brain potentials while respondents from contrast_ing political-ethical backgrounds completed an attitude survey on drugs, medical ethics, social conduct, and other issues. Our results show that value-based disagreement is unlocked by language extremely rapidly, within 200 to 250 ms after the first word that indicates a clash with the reader's value system (e.g., "I think euthanasia is an ac_ceptable/unacceptable. . ."). Furthermore, strong dis_agreement rapidly influences the ongoing analysis of meaning, which indicates that even very early processes in language comprehension are sensitive to a person's value system. Our results testify to rapid reciprocal links be_tween neural systems for language and for valuation.